It is absolutely the most preposterous idea I could ever suggest. It almost hurts me to put a thought like this into print because such an action by itself can give this ridiculousness some credibility. It’s possible that if I just ignore it, everyone will eventually forget there were ever any rumors about Antoine Walker being traded back to the Boston Celtics.
But therein lies the problem. I can’t ignore this because every time I think it’s blown over it just keeps coming back, like a bad dream. Not a bad analogy in this case, by the way.
That any ink whatsoever has been wasted on this unsubstantiated rumor absolutely blows my mind. I even ribbed my crazy friend Neal in a column I wrote last spring for (somewhat) seriously suggesting that Celtics’ Executive Director of Basketball Operations Danny Ainge could be considering such a move.
Just think about it for a moment. Why on Earth would Ainge do something like this? He hated Walker’s game from the beginning; we know this from Ainge’s work on TNT before he took the job with the Celtics. He openly criticized the way he played, and, to be perfectly honest, didn’t change his tune all that much when he got to Beantown. Once Walker was shipped to Dallas the gloves really came off and Ainge said that Walker had an unhealthy “hold on the team.” And I doubt that Danny has forgotten the handshake snub Walker dealt him upon his first and only return to the FleetCenter as a visitor, either. Not to mention the significant amount of crow Ainge would have to eat if he were to say he had been wrong about number 8.
Heck, for the sake of argument, let’s throw the previous paragraph away and pretend that Ainge’s plan all along was to re-acquire the aforementioned power forward. Perhaps Ainge realized that Walker’s value would soon drop and sought to get as much for him as he could, let `Toine’s market shrink and then try to get him back for $.90 cents on the dollar. Hey, who knows, maybe Ainge has forgotten his whole shtick about not being able to build a team through free agency and is salivating over the possibility of the cap space that shredding Walker’s $14.6 million expiring contract would create.
But why in the blazes would Atlanta (Walker’s current home) trade him for anything the C’s are offering? A team as completely woebegone as the Hawks will only take back expiring contracts and young talent. That means no Walker for Raef LaFrentz deal straight up (not that it would work, anyway). Any trade would probably have to include Gary Payton, and if you saw the first half of that Hornets/Celtics game the other night you know the C’s will be scared to death of losing the Glove. And in case you’re wondering, Tony Delk is not walking through that door, either.
So that’s just it. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Yet it just won’t go away. First came a report in the Boston Herald about three weeks ago that claimed that Walker wanted to come back to the green and white next season when he becomes a free agent. Seemed odd, but somewhat plausible. Remember, Antoine was a superstar in Boston, a status he promptly lost upon exiting. Maybe he was trying to right his ship by returning to the place that made him a star. To help me figure this out I sought the help of a reporter for the Hawks to ask Walker about it. She dutifully reported that upon hearing of his desire to return to Boston, he burst out laughing and stated flatly, “I ain’t going back there.” Simple enough. Just a false rumor. There are plenty of those out there. As far as I was concerned, case closed.
Five days later, the attention loving New York Post columnist Peter Vecsey put the idea into people’s head that it was Ainge that actually wanted Walker this time. He claimed that, according to his source, Ainge was “determined to atone for his original sin.” (FYI, for those of you not particularly well schooled in Vecsey talk, I think he meant that Ainge’s original sin was trading Walker. Just a guess.) Still, this was not the first time Vecsey has tried to stir the pot, and much of his insider information, while great water cooler talk, doesn’t tend to be particularly accurate.
Only three days later, there was an article in the MetroWest Daily News that claimed that a team source had said the Celtics were trying to get their hands on Walker because in the lowly Eastern Conference, a guy like him could make the Celtics contenders. The article went on to say that, contrary to my “exhaustive” investigative reporting, if traded back to Boston, Walker would “be on a bus tonight. He’d walk here.” While I certainly respect what this piece says and have taken much time to consider its ramifications if true, it’s going to take more than one “team source” to convince me that the Ainge is willing to bring Walker back into the Celtics’ family.
Over the last two weeks there have been a few other reports from ESPN claiming new information about Walkergate. Some claim it’s just a baseless rumor, others believe the idea was something thrown around only half seriously within the organization, and there is some belief that it is actually a possibility. Sick of this wild goose chase, I decided I was going to take this right to the big cheese himself. Point blank I asked Ainge what was going on with Antoine Walker and Boston. He laughed and told me “You know I’m not going to comment on that!”
Figures. Why put an end to a debate that could actually make the Celtics relevant in the mind of the Boston sports fan? Not when it’s so much fun to perpetuate, as crazy and outrageous as it may be.